Dictionary of all Scriptures & Myths

ELEMENTS, FIVE

A symbol of the five manifested planes of nature in grades of spirit-matter, from the innermost spiritual to the outermost physical, or in other terms, from the highest to the lowest.

"Chinese writers maintain there are five original elements, whose names and order are, water, fire, wood, metal, earth, of which the last occupies the centre of a circle described by the other four: the first two take precedence of the rest, both on account of superior importance and priority of existence.”—S. Kidd, China, p. 160.
The first two are atma (water) and buddhi (fire). The others are mind (metal), astral (wood) and physical (earth). The physical is the temporary centre about which the others turn in the soul-process.

"It is at God's command that this work (creation) unfolds itself, which is called earth, water, fire, air, and ether." - Svetas Upanishad, VI. 2.

The physical (earth), the astral (lower water), the mental (air), the buddhic (fire), and the atmic (ether).

The world may in a certain sense be considered as composed and compacted out of five other worlds; for example, the ono is of earth, the other of water, the third of fire; the fourth of air; the fifth element some call heaven, some light, others æther.' - PLUTARCH, On the E at Delphi, § XI.

Homer was the first to divide the world into five portions. The three inter- mediate he has assigned to the three gods; the two extremes, Olympus and Earth, whereof the one is the boundary of things below, the other of things above, he has left common to all and unallotted to any." - Ibid., § XIII.

Olympus, Heaven, Light, and Ether stand as symbols of the highest plane, atma. Buddhi (fire), mind (air), astral (water), physical (earth). The "three Gods" are Hera (buddhi), Hermes (mind), and Hades (astral).

"Know that when in the beginning all was perfect void, and the five elements were not, then Adi-Buddha, the stainless, was revealed in the form of Flame and Light." - Buddhist Sutta.

"God pervadeth the five elements, the three worlds, the nine regions, and the four quarters of the universe. The Almighty supporteth the earth and the heavens." - MACAULIFFE, The Sikh Religion, Vol. I. p. 314.

"From the time Yin and Yang united and the five elements were intermingled in the centre of the universe, moisture and heat operated on each other, and produced an intelligent being." - KIDD, China, p. 167.

That is, from the beginning when Matter and Spirit, or form and life, were allied and operative upon all the five planes of the manifested Cosmos, Will and Wisdom together united, and so produced the Monad which is atma-buddhic.

"That, then, from which the whole Cosmos is formed, consisteth of Four Elements-Fire, Water, Earth, and Air; Cosmos itself is one, its Soul is one, and God is one, For from (the Elements), o'er which the same God rules, there floweth forth a flood of all things streaming through the Cosmos and the Soul, of every class and kind, throughout the nature of all things ("The Perfect Sermon "). - G. R. S. MEAD, T. G. Hermes, Vol. II. p. 312.

“For from these four elements come all things that are, or have been, or shall be; from these there grew up trees and men and women, wild beasts and birds, and water-nourished fishes, and the very Gods, long-lived, highest in honour." - Empedocles, FAIRBANKS, 104.

For from these four principles of nature, or departments of existence, namely, atma, buddhi-manas, kama-manas, and the physical, proceed all that was, is, or shall be in this manvantara. From these principles are developed lower emotions (trees), mental faculties (men), and the higher emotions (women); undisciplined desires (wild beasts), and aspirations (birds); truth-receptive ideas (water-nourished fishes); and these all become the instructors of the higher qualities (Gods), that is, they furnish. with knowledge the higher mind, or buddi-manas, in the causal-body which persists beyond the lower vehicles, and is the supreme seat of the Divine nature in the soul.

"Antiochus teaches,-There are two natures, the active and the passive, force and matter, but neither is ever without the other. That which is compounded of both is called a body or a quality. Among these qualities the simple and the compound are to be distinguished; the former consisting of the four, or, according to Aristotle, five, primitive bodies, the latter of all the rest of the first category, fire and air are the active, earth and water the receptive and passive. Underlying them all, however, is the matter without quality, which is their substratum, the imperishable, but yet infinitely divisible elements, producing, in the constant change of its forms, definite bodies (qualia). All these together form the world. The eternal reason which animates and moves the world is called Deity or Providence, also Necessity; and because of the unsearchableness of its workings sometimes even Chance." - ZELLER, Eclecticism in Greek Philosophy, p. 94.

"Fire lives in the death of earth, and air lives in the death of fire; water lives in the death of air, and earth in the death of water." - Herakleitos, FAIRBANKS, 25.

Wisdom (fire) is active in the soul when the physical and lower nature (earth) is dissipated. The mind (air) is active when Wisdom (fire) is latent. Truth (water) is revealed when the lower mind (air) ceases to function. The physical lower nature (earth) is active where Truth (water) is unmanifest.

“According to the Taoist teaching, the element of Earth generates Metal and overcomes Water; Metal generates Water and overcomes Wood; Water generates Wood and overcomes Fire ; Wood generates Fire and overcomes Earth." - S. B. of E., Vol. XXXIX., p. 258.

The physical nature (earth), through the activity of the senses, generates mind (metal) and obscures the intuition of Truth (water). The mind (metal) by its functioning acquires knowledge (water) and dominates the astral principle (wood). Truth (water) is outpoured and reflected as error and illusion in the astral principle (wood), and so overcomes Wisdom (fire). The astral principle (wood), through the transmutation of the desires, evolves Wisdom in the soul, and by this means controls and disciplines the physical sensation nature (earth).

See Also

ÆTHER
AIR
ASTRAL PLANE ATMA
BUDDHIC PLANE
COSMOS
COSMOS (Higher Aspect)
DAYS (five)
EARTH (specialised)
FIRE
FIVE, NUMBER
FOUR, NUMBER
GATHA (Days)
GODS
GOLDEN AGE
HEAVEN AND EARTH
MANAS
METAL
MINISTERS (four)
NECESSITY
OLYMPUS
PILLARS (four)
PLANES (five)
QUATERNARY
RULERS (five)
SEASONS (five)
THIEVES (five)
VESTURES (five)
WATER (Higher)
WOOD
WORLDS (five)
YANG